Electoral politics, gentrification, and strategic use of contested place identities in Toronto’s Portuguese neighbourhood

Abstract

This article uses the lens of electoral politics to improve understanding of political dynamics in an ethnic neighbourhood undergoing gentrification, corresponding to Ward 18 and its antecedents in the City of Toronto. This ward has been populated by Portuguese immigrants and their descendants since the 1960s. Since the 1990s, gentrification has corresponded to a decrease in the Portuguese population alongside a proliferating, diverse mix of new arrivals. This article tackles the question of how gentrification affects electoral politics in this traditionally ethnic neighbourhood. In the history of Toronto’s municipal elections, a first-generation Portuguese Canadian candidate first appeared on the ballot in 1978; a decade later, the ward elected another first-generation Portuguese Canadian to the city council. In 2014, the third and most recent of them pursued her candidacy while recognizing the changed demographic and cultural circumstances of the neighbourhood existing as two places within a single urban space. Competing against a candidate with no cultural affiliation to the Portuguese Canadian community, the incumbent won by a narrow margin through appealing to out-group residents, while respecting and cherishing the Portuguese residents, or her robust electoral base. This electoral mirroring of the current condition of this urban space has implications for understanding the relationships between gentrification, urban ethnic minorities, and electoral politics; ethnicity is consolidated through electoral campaigns and mobilized as a useful and handy political tool, and both ethnic-based and non–ethnic-based place identities are strategically utilized for electoral politics in an ethnic neighbourhood undergoing gentrification.